****The Official Lappinitup Match Thread - QPR v Norwich****

[****The Official Lappinitup Match Thread - QPR v Norwich****]

Subs were stupid but that was pathetic from Hanley and Giannoulis 

[Female support at Carrow Road]

I can't be the only one who thinks "female" is really cringe. It's like saying the neighbors 'felines 'are sh**ing in my yard or I was attacked by a rouge 'canine'. You are aware that 'they' are just people and fans like us right? 'They' aren't a different bloody species. 

The poor atmosphere at the ground has nothing to do with a higher percentage of 'females' .You know, those others who should be at home cleaning instead of sitting in the stands. It's because the home form has been awful for the last 2 and a half years and that we know our team isn't good enough for the PL even if we did go up. But go ahead, find the easy target, it's all those bloody 'females' fault 😆

 

[Why Attanasio wants to buy Norwich (and Delia must sell)]

30 minutes ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Thanks @Robert N. LiM..it came through a feed in our office and I thought explained very clearly that there is a marketplace for selling sports clubs.

There are lots of Americans - many with no deep interest in soccer - buying the limited assets that are sports clubs. Football clubs being the key to a more global reach, even beyond Hockey, Basketball and NFL.

Not all of them are buying them because they love them. Lots of them are buying them because they are an appreciating asset. 

Hedge Funds are getting involved now because it was an overlooked, underappreciated asset class. Plus it did not have a structured trading market. Plus it was not recognised for leverage by institutions previously. 

Plus previously it was culturally considered a benign, almost philanthropic, culturally and commercially localized process and buying decision. Now it is none of those things. 

Some people live in the past, some in the present and some in the future. If you see what others don’t see, you have an advantage. You can use that advantage in many ways. 

As @nutty nigel has previously commented, some just treat the entire takeover of our club as ‘another transfer to get done’…frantically refresh Page 302, then queue up to be the first to post a thread complaining that it hasn’t worked. 

Others - and I predict 

@king canary

@Petriix

@BigFish

@PurpleCanary

@Don J Demorr

@shefcanary

@GMF

@MrBunce

@TIL 1010

@Christoph Stiepermann

@essex canary

@Jim Smith

..will take the time to read this and will understand exactly how it relates to Norwich. 

The ownership and control of our club, all its assets, all its players, stadium, naming rights, buying and selling, academy, land, brand….is the issue in question. 

Parma 
 

Thanks for posting this, I don't read GQ so I'd have never seen this and  it was an interesting insight into how takeovers work. People tend to think that it's just a case of a much richer person ringing the current owners and saying i'll offer x amount and promise to do right by the club and it's a done deal but in reality it's much more complicated and this was an interesting insight into how that all works. I did laugh a bit about multi millionaires not being allowed into a certain club. I think back to that Simpsons gag about Mr.Burns being kicked out of the billionaires club and being laughed at because he's not rich enough to be part of that exclusive club. It's a whole different world but it's fascinating to get an insight into it. 

It didn't need an addendum at the end but the jist is that owning a sports team has a different level of kudos to just owning a big boat or a big business. It has an emotional investment that a lot of owners get sucked into and it gives them something to be proud of. It's something to brag about and gives certain people bragging rights among their peers if their team wins or achieves something. People like Attanasio aren't rich enough to own one of the crown jewels and would get shut out of any bidding war for a glamorous club but the choice for multi millionaires (relative paupers) is be a small investor in Chelsea or be the main man here. He's rich enough to make a real difference here but what's the point in being 5% owner in Chelsea when you can have the chance to be loved here and be well known and "high fived" while he walks or drives down the street. It also highlights how  Delia and MWJ are part of the old guard and as much as we can romanticize those times the sport and all sports have left owners like that behind and operating under their model will be noncompetitive because the relentless march of capitalism has left them behind.

Plus the value of sports clubs have rocketed in the last 20 years and there's no reason to believe that it will change anytime soon so anyone investing a few 100m would have no reason to believe that the asset wouldn't be worth 10x that amount in a decade. Sorry if I over explained that for anyone else who it was also obvious to who took the time to read it 

 

[*official lappinitup Cup match thread Canaries V The Gas*]

We won. The manager is not going to be here next season so just enjoy it. I and most of you on here were not one of the 800 fans who traveled tonight and there wasn't a stream so nobody can really comment on performance. 

Wagner will be gone next season, we're not going up or down so just try to enjoy every win, take each game as it comes and just try to enjoy it in any way you can. Yeah we had to struggled to beat a L1 team but most of us have watched a non-league Luton beat our PL team in the early 2010's, it happens, you've all witnessed an uncountable amount of cup upsets over the years. The prize money really matters for lower league clubs and they are always going to be well up for it. So it's always going to be a struggle. 

I get why people are still annoyed despite the win, our immediate future and our momentum really matters, our performances in the cup matter, it does say a lot about where we're at and where we're going to finish in the league. But nothing is going to change before the end of this season unless we lose 4/5 in a row and the club are forced to act, but even then we'd only appoint a caretaker to see us through to the end of this season and even then we're not getting promoted with this set of players. 

Next season we'll have a new head coach and a different team so things will be different. But just for now enjoy it when we win. Wagner was never getting sacked tonight even if we lost. I really understand and emphasize with people who think we need a bad result or run of bad results to force the club to act because in the past when they've been forced to act (Gunn and Adams) we've had an immediate upturn but it's not going to happen this season so just try to enjoy it. We won tonight, we've got a fun tie against Liverpool up next and we'll all get to watch the game if we're not part of the hardcore away following. We'll probably lose but we get to watch Norwich again live on TV. 

When you're a mid table team and it's not your year you've just got to take the little wins as they come. I'm looking forward to watching the game and seeing how our better players do against top opposition.

[Yobocop's Big Post of the Week - Best Contributors + Posts]

18 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Typing one-handed?

Seriously, I always enjoy your posts. And just your username makes it clear you're going to be a sound guy. Thanks for your kind words too.

TV commentators not knowing a damn thing about us, so our players got called Christoph Stiepermann or Marco Zimmerman. Idiots, but it made me laugh.  I cant wait until we get promoted again so we can watch Marcelino Sara and Gabriel Nunez tearing it up in the PL 🤣

[Yobocop's Big Post of the Week - Best Contributors + Posts]

On 16/01/2024 at 15:40, TheGunnShow said:

@Christoph Stiepermann deserves a shout-out for some always very interesting tactical stuff too. Surprised he's not been mentioned yet.

I appreciate the call out but most of my posts are pretty mid, stream of consciousness and usually fueled by emotion mid-game and I use my phone to post so auto correct combined with me tapping away quickly tends to make me read quite awkwardly at times. 

Aside from the obvious top posters like Parma and Ricardo I'd like to shout out @Robert N. LiM and @Petriix for posts that i really enjoy personally.

[Footballers doing mundane/normal things]

Nothing really interesting or exciting here but I've seen a few of them mostly outside of Norwich. 

Most recently saw Gibson walking along Yarmouth sea front with his partner. That's about as mundane as it gets. 

Was at Yarmouth stadium some time in Hughtons first year and saw Holt and Morison outside together which was funny to me at the time because during that season a lot of people were spreading rumours that they didn't like each other. Going to a greyhound race is pretty ordinary too. 

Years ago at school in Ormesby middle school a few of us were standing outside the front entrance and Dale Gordon was jogging past, can't remember his exact words but the jist was "forget school lads lets go for a run" and we followed him jogging for a little while towards the Spar but we were about 9 or 10 so couldn't really keep up. 

Saw Oli Johnson jogging to the ground before a game once too with his gym bag which made me laugh, even footballers have to get to the stadium on foot sometimes. 

 

 

[Championship computer prediction]

These computer prediction tables always make me groan. They predict that every team will either be in the same position or one, maybe two places different basically to what they are on the day that the prediction is made...Really clever technology. If they do this prediction again after another two games every team in the middle of the pack will be predicated to finish in wildly different places. 

It's the Championship, if the table at the end of the season looks near identical to what it looks like now it would just be an astonishing co-incidence. 

[Players deserve our support.]

I think it's gonna take a while before most in the crowd start getting behind players just for effort and be happy to support a team that just pushes for the play offs. 

We've fallen really far really quickly and have had two absolutely diabolical seasons before this one where a lot of hope and enthusiasm was sucked out of the crowd. The comments from some senior people at the club haven't helped either, fans see the problem as decisions made by Webber, the club was enamored with Webber, Webber blamed the fans and took little responsibility and people are still annoyed about it all. 

Fans are still thinking two and a half years ago we had just blown the Championship away, we've since then spent a lot of money to make some decisions only to end up as a mid table Championship side setting up to stifle opposition with much lower wage budgets than us who we were much better than before these decisions were made. It's only natural that people are jaded and I think it would be the same at any other club. Then you've got all the previous false dawns under this manager and set of players, the fact that Ipswich are doing so well, and the fact that many feel like nothing ever changes at the club unless the fans turn and you have a really unfortunate set of circumstances that have lead to a lot of discontent and a poor atmosphere. 

I'm not saying I agree with all of this, this is just what I think has lead to the current mood and fanbase being unhappy and I don't see anything changing for at least the rest of this season even if the players continue to put a shift in and don't deserve the lack of support themselves. 

Next year expectations will naturally be lower with the loss of parachute payments and the fact we'll lose at least one key player. Wagner will probably be gone which will sever another link to Webber. A new manager will always get a bounce from the crowd/some patience and I'd imagine the age profile of the team will be a lot younger, cheaper and more players will have less baggage and not only will people find that set up easier to support, expectations will drop so winning won't be taken for granted and losses won't be as infuriating. I'm hoping Knapper and Attanasio will do some press work before the season to communicate clearly to fans what the plan is and so long as it doesn't go completely belly up I think the atmosphere and support for the team will be better next year even if we're not winning every game. 

[*official lappinitup match thread Tigers V Canaries*]

6 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

Pretty turgid first half, Rowes goal the only real bit of quality by either side.

Midfield need to get into the game. The defence has done a good job keeping Hull at bay but the midfielders need to get their foot on the ball to relieve a bit of pressure now and again and give the strikers something to hold up or run on to.

Sargent and Barnes completely reliant on scraps at the moment

What midfield? We're playing a 424 with two number 10's in the middle of the park but also setting the team up to stick 10 men behind the ball and asking our defenders to create all of our moves and forwards to do most of the defending. It's all so backwards and overly complicated. 

Do the basics right, square pegs in square holes, work hard, keep things simple and then when you've got that down and it's working start to implement new ideas. We're trying to be too clever as usual and as a result we look so disjointed and confused. 

[Hypothetical: Emi was willing to stay]

Would have made a difference but you don't compete in the modern PL unless you can defend, counter attack quickly and are really good at set pieces. We would have scored more goals, got more points, maybe kept Farke and saved ourselves a lot of money but I don't think it would have been enough to keep us up. 

I think keeping Buendia and only making a few signings like say Gibson, Dimi and Sargent for fees and Normann, and Kabak on loan (around 30m with loan fees and wages?, our spend minus the Buendia money) would have gotten us closer to or around 30 points but I still don't see that team surviving. The opening run of fixtures we had was horrendous, so I think the points tally around the time of the Brentford game would have been similar, but we would have looked a better side so we'd have probably kept Farke and the season would have turned out very similar to our 19/20 season but without the downturn when covid happened. 

[Wagner and Huddersfield]

5 hours ago, Peregrine Shorts said:

he also had Aaron Mooy in midfield

When we appointed Wagner I had a look at Huddersfield's highlights from their promotion and survival seasons. Mooy was involved with nearly every goal in some way and I'm not exaggerating. If he didn't score it or play the final pass he either started the move or delivered the set piece. Without him they wouldn't have done anything.

They did look good when they came to CR but we were the perfect team to play for them with their wing focused high pressing style . We were a less than fully committed side suffering from a bad relegation hangover who were very vulnerable in the FB areas under Neil and they just out-worked us and tore us apart on the wings. They weren't like that every game that year and they usually played like the underdogs in games and won a lot of games by a single goal. 

Saying that though we've never much looked like Wagner's Huddersfield and I don't think Wagner has really tried to set us up that way either. 

[To those obsessed with boos.]

4 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I think the boos are natural when performances are bad and totally understandable. Especially end of games etc.

The bit I do think is unbelievable is booing us passing it around the back 8 minutes into a game as it smacks of a complete void in understanding football and that's the bit I take issue with. And I vocalise it to those around me so I don't just keyboard-warrior that point.

But at home we've been underwhelming enough times and certainly 80 minutes into the game yesterday I felt it was fair enough.

The thing is it's impossible to articulate from the stands exactly what you're unhappy about and why you feel that way. I don't boo, but it's not because I think I'm above it or that I'm a better fan for not booing it just feels pointless and wrong to me but I tend to find myself agreeing with the mood in the stands most of the time and I totally understand why some do and why they feel the need to vocalize to people at the club that they're unhappy with something. In this instance it feels more like the crowd are annoyed about the way we're playing out and our players lack of ability to do it as opposed to booing the concept of playing out from the back. 

I never understood the booing at passing it around the back during Farke's first season and a half because the club and Farke communicated to us clearly exactly what we were trying to do, that it would take time and that we were in a transitional period even if it was pretty dodgy at times because we knew we were trying to implement a new style of play and over the course of that period we were getting better at it generally and when we pulled it off it worked. But right now we only seem to be getting worse, the defenders we have now don't look remotely capable of comfortable doing it, it's too slow, it's too languid, too lacking in invention and creativity and other teams (even mid table L1 teams) are finding it too easy to stop us. Even when we do get around teams we rarely make something happen so I totally understand why fans are booing it.

But the thing is you can't communicate from the stands that you're unhappy because of those reasons, you can only boo a certain pattern of play that keeps failing and putting us under more pressure. Some fans will always have a problem with playing out from the back and maybe they're the ones you find yourself arguing with, but I'd like to think most are booing because they're sick of us repeating the same pattern of play that keeps failing but if you want to be heard from the stands there's no way to communicate that effectively. 

Imagine if we had two big, immobile lumps up front with no pace and who couldn't time a run but kept trying to feed them with through balls as our main tactic for creating chances. It wouldn't work and eventually the crowd would start getting annoyed at the team for trying the same thing over and over again and it not getting us anywhere. It's not that they have a problem with the idea of us trying through balls, the problem is that tactic isn't working for the players we had and would quite rightly be getting frustrated at the team for it, but you can't shout from the stands exactly why you're getting frustrated. If we'd been struggling with that approach for a while then started doing that against a L1 team and it wasn't working as usual of course the crowd would start getting on the teams back even if it was only 8 minutes in. 

[606 caller]

Most fans I speak to in person who have season tickets or go regularly don't really care about results or how we play. They just like the day out with their family or go out of habit because they always have done.

The age thing is a sensitive topic and I know plenty of people around my age or younger who go and sit in silence and whenever I have sat in stands outside the Barclay it's usually one of the old boys who try to get some chants going but all the boring miserable sods just ignore them or give them looks so fair play to them but they're the exception to the rule. I'm not criticizing older fans and I know first hand how embarrassing it is trying to make some noise but getting looks or being told to sit down and be quiet in the 3 other stands so I don't blame people for staying silent because most fans in those stands don't want to support their team, they just want to sit down, drink or eat whatever they bought in the concourse and watch the game in peace and quiet . We do have lots of fans who are either too old to be bothered to get up and make noise and who just want to sit down and watch the game and loads of families who turn up together for the day out but aren't that interested and who just sit there in silence eating snacks and playing on their phones. Our crowd is mostly made up of very old people and families taking their kids out and you aren't going to get a big atmosphere from that demographic as a general rule. 

The Barclay is different, you get a real mix of people in there who are really passionate about supporting their team and whether they're quiet or not depends on how the team is doing which is fair enough. But in all the other stands im always surrounded by very old people or families who give me dirty looks when I try to get a chant going like I'm disturbing their peace and quiet or upsetting their small children by making noise so I gave up a while ago trying to loudly cheer on the team in those areas. Like I said before you occasionally get one old boy trying to get a song going as well but people just mutter under their breaths about wanting him to be quiet or wanting them to sit down so they can watch the game in peace.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe offering cheaper tickets? Outside of Norwich and some of the posher villages, Norfolk is a very impoverished county with some of the most deprived areas in the country which puts a lot of fans off going.  Also  people from Norfolk tend to be very reserved and quiet. But even though the team is struggling right now the atmosphere in the stands is a big problem and something has to be done to improve the atmosphere. 

[Unacceptable!]

They're a much better side than us. In fact I'd say all over the pitch excluding the striker position they're better than any Championship team we've ever had. If we opened up against them they would have torn us apart by now. I've lost interest in doing things the 'Norwich way', being the unlucky losers who play pretty football but can't defend and concede easy goals by over committing against better sides. If we tried to play them at their own game today we would be at least 2-0 down by now. Sometimes you just have to accept that the opposition are better than you and being defensively solid and counter attacking is a better approach than going for it and giving them an easy win. 

Yes we should be better than this, but that's Webber's fault not any of the current players or staff. We are where we are and we need to play the percentages against better sides. 

[We only need one player]

Any ball winning midfielder would have to do the job of 2 players to make a difference. A player of Oli Skipp's ability actually would fix most of our problems but we're extremely unlikely to find one who's willing to come here. A player like Tettey would help but wouldn't be enough to make a real difference to results. A player like that would snuff out some counter attacks but not enough of them. The reason we keep getting torn apart of the counter are structural issues with our set up and while a mid table PL quality DM would help solve a lot of our problems it's unrealistic to think just signing one would be an easy fix. It's the equivalent of a really defensive Championship team who don't create many chances or score many goals saying if only we could sign a player who puts away the one chance they'll get every game, that would really help that team but they're not going to be able to find that player.

[*official lappinitup match thread Lions V Canaries*]

We're not going up or down this season so I'm just trying to enjoy every game in isolation and this has been a fun watch. Football can be a bit robotic and dull nowdays and this has reminded me of a proper intense old school Championship game like I used to watch as a kid. Would be nice to get a result but I've still enjoyed this one. 

[4 years ago today we all knew VAR should be scrapped]

You shouldn't penalize players for the way they run, the lines should be drawn from the tip of their boot, if their heads or shoulder are offside so what? Are we expecting players to run like they're about to limbo just to beat the VAR offside rules? Pukki was in an onside position he just lent forward so he could run quicker. 

Also who decides at what milisecond the ball left Vrancic's foot? Or is it the moment it makes contact with the ball? With a goal like that the margins are so small that it makes a difference. It's also quite clear from those pictures that the lines are on top of each other so he was level and being level isn't offside but even if you want to argue millimeters then how did they determine at exactly what point to drawn the vertical line on Pukki's chest? Why is the line exactly that wide and what difference does that make?  So it's not like you can say well it's harsh but it was the right decision because there is still margin for error.

It's not just us who gets the ridiculous decisions against us and it isn't just the big clubs who benefit. But we've definitely had it at least as bad as anyone else has with VAR and other dodgy decisions. It makes sense though, if it's a 50/50 decision that nobody can agree on if you give the higher profile club the benefit of the doubt then there's less scrutiny on the decision. If I was a ref and not a Norwich fan I'd probably do the same if I was unsure on a decision. Nobody cares or notices if it's us, nobody wants us in that league anyway because we don't make headlines and are a pain to travel to but if you give a decision like that against the more fashionable clubs you're going to be in all the headlines and the decision can't be as easily swept under the rug. 

[The two Idahs.]

Probably the strongest player in the Championship physically. Players just bounce off of him even big opposition CB's and we need to make more use of that. I know long balls aren't the Norwich way but he's so dangerous when we play balls over the top for him to run into as he's got some pace and technique to drive forward and a good long shot. 

He's pretty useless v a packed defence though and not as good in the air as he should be so if any team is sitting back against us there's little point in him being on the pitch. I do wonder if he'd be better off playing for a team like Luton or Sheff Utd who defend all game and have to go long than he would a team like us who want to dominate games at the level we're at. He's the perfect sub for us though in any game when teams aren't getting men behind the ball. If we're 1-0 up or drawing v a better team who are throwing players forward bring him on because they'll have to sit deeper to deal with his threat. If we're pushing for a winner his pace and strength is a nightmare for tired defenders too but seemingly only when they're tired later on in games. But when he starts games for a team like us his poor positioning and lack of creativity and ability to find space means he just looks lost most of the time. I doubt he'll be happy playing the super sub role though and I can't imagine that's the career the club were hoping he'd have. 

[How Bad Was Webber]

2 hours ago, A Load of Squit said:

Watching the game on at the moment and the rest of the season so far it's obvious that this is the worst Premier League season ever, our promoted team would've easily been top half in this years PL.

 

It looks that way because most teams are set up extremely pragmatically and risk averse but the individual quality of teams is so strong and the game is played so much faster at that level than it is at Championship level. We can admire the football of Leicester, Leeds and Southampton in the Championship but the fact is they're playing their good football at a much slower pace than PL teams are and the teams they come up against aren't anywhere near as quick as PL teams are so they aren't getting run out of possesion or hit at pace on the counter to the same degree they would at that level. Speed is the main difference and it's so much harder to play football even a little bit faster than you normally would and PL football is significantly faster than Championship football. 

The bottom 3 this year looks relatively poor but it's made up of a team that imploded before a ball was kicked, a team that performed well above expectation last year at a level blow and play very pragmatically to get their results and a team very similar to one of our recent much derided relegated teams. The rest are really strong, they just don't look flashy or all that good because of how they set up and the quality of teams they face

[How Bad Was Webber]

Most of you wouldn't tolerate the style of football Luton play even if it meant potentially surviving. We couldn't have played that way anyway though even if we wanted to with the type of players we had. The problem was a combination of not enough money, poor recruitment from Webber and a style of play from Farke that is never going to work for a promoted club with no money. Webber was poor for his last few years here but Luton isn't a fair comparison because they've done everything so differently. Burnley are a better comparison and they're doing about as badly as we did despite having a bit more money to spend. 

[Urgent - dog rescue]

You'll find it's worker dogs that need to be exercised most like collies, german shephards, lurchers, husky's etc. On grey hounds being lazy, any animal that's known for it's explosive speed or lots of fast twitch muscle fibers tend to come across as lazy because they instinctually save their energy for when they need it so they'll spend most of the day sleeping and won't want to move much. You don't want to tire out those fast twitch muscle fibers, you need to save it for the moment you have to either catch prey or escape a predator. Same story with cats, people think they sleep all day and don't move much because they're just lazy but it's more of an energy conservation thing and also why cats tend to have that mad 5 minutes every day because they have to get out that stored energy if not used (if you have indoor cats play with them daily or they'll break all your stuff!) and look absolutely nuts when they do because all that energy has to be released in a short time frame. 

That's why greyhounds are really low energy animals most of the time and surprisingly low maintenance and rescuing an ex race dog is a pretty good option for someone who doesn't fancy walking a dog twice a day. 

[The positives and negatives from yesterday]

I know Barnes has started getting a bit of stick recently but lets look at our record with and without him in the squad. With him we've gotten 22 points from 13 games, without him it's 7 points from 9 games. I know it's not all down to him and the form of others plays a part but that's comfortable play off form vs relegation form. If you include the league cup it's another 2 wins with him v Championship opposition as well. He's one of those players who lifts others around him and inspires confidence, what he does might not be obvious to people watching at times but the difference in results when he plays vs when he doesn't is pretty stark and I don't think it's a co-incidence. 

["Deluded Madman" Proved Correct?]

We're still very shaky at the back at times though and I've noticed Duffy more than once have to come over the Kenny's side to deal with some danger. What it has done though is show that maybe the reason our attempts to play out from the back were usually so poor was because of our regular CB's quality on the ball as opposed to the way Wagner want's us to do it. Duffy is just barely good enough at it to not constantly give the ball away but hasn't got the skill or technique to do it fast enough to move teams about, same with Hanley. Batth can't do it at all and while Gibson is pretty good at it 95% of the time the 5% of the time he isn't always leads to a good chance or goal for the opposition. McLean is a good enough footballer to do it but it's leaving us exposed in a different way that suggests to me this isn't going to be the long term fix. In fact I think it's just as much a desperate short term fix as it is a message to Knapper from Wagner really wants a ball playing cb in January. Arsenal must have a technically good young CB playing for their under 23's who would jump at the chance for regular championship football, I know we have Warner but for whatever reason Wagner doesn't think he's ready yet. 

I wouldn't mind seeing us try 3 at the back at one stage with Warner/Gibson or a new signing either side of Duffy or Hanley with one of those two being told to just win everything and do all the last ditch defending. That way would could have our ball playing defenders but still be solid in the air and at last ditch defending. Push the fullbacks high for width. Have a balanced midfield 3 or McLean, Sara and Nunez with Rowe playing off the striker more centrally like this (In an ideal world with everyone fit)

                       Gunn

           Warner Duffy Gibson

Stacey                                     Dimi

           Nunez McLean Sara

                       Rowe

                      Sargent

That way when trying to suck teams in and beat their press McLean can still drop deep like he does now but it'll be 3 players decent on the ball plus Duffy as a spare man if needed which should make it much more effective. The fullbacks starting positions would be higher allowing for quicker counter attacks and that position should suit their attacking instincts more, we'd still have 2 in the middle like we do now. Rowe can float around wherever he wants to and not have to track back much and as we don't score many from crosses from our wingers anyway i don't think we lose loads by sacrificing that area of the pitch. Probably a terrible idea as historically we've always been awful with 3 at the back but looking at the players we have combined with Wagners insistence on his way of creating artificial counters by sucking teams in with our build up play it makes sense in my head.   

       

[Could Farke have turned it around?]

Have any team who plays possession football survived after being promoted since Swansea in 2011? Farke is a good manager, a great coach and he was fantastic for us, but his style of football does not work if you're one of the weakest teams in whatever league you're in. So no, I don't think he'd have turned it around. I think in the next game Southampton would have pressed us off the park and stopped us playing and in the next game Wolves would have just sat back and ripped us apart on the counter like most teams did against us under Farke in that league. We only got results in those two games because Smith changed things and I don't think they were expecting us to do what we did in those games but under Farke we would have been really predictable and with their better quality and pragmatic approach they would have beaten us easily and fans would have been calling for him to be sacked like they were before the Brentford game. 

Don't get me wrong I think if we stuck with him we'd be in a much better place now, but there was no way that was going to happen, things would have gotten really toxic as we limped into another dour, soul destroying relegation and fans would have been totally against him so it's a moot point, the club would have had to sack him at some point. We had to try something different, it didn't work but we had to give survival that year a go. We know now that the players weren't good enough and that the new signings were awful but at the time I think it was pretty reasonable to say that even with our lack of quality our slow build up play, lack of counter attacking/set piece threat and poor defensive structure really wasn't helping things and we had to do something about it even if longer term it's put us in a worse position.